Their Final Night
by SunshineAndSecrets
Summary: For years Ty Lee has been Azula's faithful servant, but eventually one has to say enough is enough. With a broken heart, the acrobat says goodbye to her life long friend. Not a happy ending, suggested TyZula, Angst! M for language! One shot!


A thunderstorm raged outside, crashing and shuddering and causing the entire building to sway and creak. Ty Lee sat alone in a parlor, bawling. Her cried were only partially drowned out by the thunder, but she hardly cared. She was curled into a tight ball in a plush arm chair, the fire in the room having dimmed to mere coals long ago. She was cold, shivering, exhausted from crying and it was exactly what she wanted to feel. She was miserable, she couldn't remember ever having been quite so miserable in her entire life. She had held onto a dream for so long, and now... now she was coming to terms with it's futility. And it was making her heart break. She had focused on this ideal for so long that now, without it, her life hardly seemed livable.

"Ty Lee? What in Agni's name are you doing?" The last person in the world she wanted to see or hear from had entered the room, unbeknownst to her.

She said nothing.

"Answer me," the cold voice demanded.

"With all due respect, Azula" she sobbed out, her voice nearly unintelligible, "Go. Away."

She felt the temperature of the room heat considerably as the ex-princess' ire rose. Ty Lee didn't care. "What did you say to me?" Azula hissed.

"I said go away. I'm in no mood to speak with you."

"Well that much is obvious!" Azula scoffed. "Here I am concerned that something has happened and you treat me in this manned.

It was Ty Lee's turn to scoff.

Azula growled, "How dare you!"

"Yeah, uh huh, how dare I!" Ty Lee laughed, enjoying the feeling of being so close to death. She almost wished the ex-princess _would..._ fry her with lightning or something. Nothing would make her happier. "How dare I treat you as anything less than a goddess! I don't think you've noticed, but I've treated you better than anyone else your entire life, and where has it gotten me? No where. So I'm done. Please, kill me if you want, or if you're not in the mood, just go away." She deadpanned once again.

Azula was irate and confused all at the same time. She wanted to blast Ty Lee with a fire ball for speaking to her in such a way, but at the same time it was so... unlike her friend that she couldn't help but be curious. "I take orders from no one," she said, anger still present, but not as prevalent.

"I hadn't noticed," Ty Lee said sarcastically.

And like that, Azula's rage was back. "What's the matter with you? Do you have a death wish, because I'd happily fulfill it!" Azula yelled at her friend.

To her surprise, Ty Lee stood up and held her arms wide, equal anger painted on her features. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, her pink garments stained with salt and tears. Red trails led down her cheeks from hours of crying. "Do it, then!"

Azula brought her hand up, wrapping it in blue flames as she stared her friend down, expecting to see the familiar, wonderful fear she always loved to instill in others. But instead, in Ty Lee's eyes she saw... stubborn acceptance. A will full need that stunned the ex-princess. That too was very unlike her friend. Slowly her hand fell back to her side and she leaned against the door frame with a thud. She was so used to people just rolling over for her, never putting up any kind of fight, and when that rare person came along who did, none of them remained standing up to her once she brought out the active threat of her fire. This girl, normally so meek and happy, had Azula perplexed.

"Why?" Azula asked.

Ty Lee sighed and flopped back down in her chair, bringing her knees up to her face once more, and once more beginning a staring contest with the coals. "What's it matter to you, anyways?"

"Mere curiosity."

"Uh huh." Ty Lee said.

"So tell me." Azula said harshly.

"Is that an _order_, princess?" Ty Lee asked with a sadistic sense of humor in he voice.

"Yes. It is." Azula said through clenched teeth. "Why are you acting so... Mai-ish?" was the best way she could describe Ty Lee's current attitude. Sullen and with a death wish... yes, Mai-ish indeed.

"Because I can," Ty Lee said, avoiding the question once again.

"Ugh!" Azula said in exasperation, finally storming across the room, grabbing a fist full of cloth from the back to Ty Lee's outfit, and dragged her up. Spinning the lighter, albeit older, girl around the ex-princess slammed her up against a wall. "I mean it!" she yelled at the girl. "What is the meaning of this?"

A sneer so hateful and enraged covered Ty Lee's features, it made Azula's breath catch in her throat. When Ty Lee spoke, it took every ounce of self control Azula had to keep her expression neutrally enraged. "You wanna know why I'm upset, _princess_?" Her friend yelled, inches from her face. "Fine! It's because of you! I've spent years worshiping the fucking ground you walked on, and you still treat me like a dog! I did everything you asked me to, I was your most faithful servant, your closest friend, and you continue to treat me like just another nobody. Well I'm sick of dedicating myself to someone who wouldn't care one way or another if I wasn't around anymore!"

Azula was baffled. Why would the girl feel that way? Azula didn't like or dislike the girl, and while she did feel some sort of base attachment to her (she was very useful after all,) why would Ty Lee's service to her have anything to do with how Azula received her? It was expected that she give the Princess everything she could. "What difference does that make? I had thousands of servants who would do that for me. It was expected." She was truly baffled.

"Ugh!" Ty Lee screeched, pushing the ex-princess away from her. "You just don't get it! You're so thick headed when it comes to real, human emotions it's infuriating! Your 'thousands of servants' did what they did because it was expected. They did it because they were afraid of you! Well guess what, rockhead! I did what I did, not because I was afraid of you, but because I actually _liked_ you! I didn't care if you were a princess or not! I stuck by your side because I wanted to be your friend, but you only ever saw me as another sack of meat to order around! I devoted the best years of my life to you, everything I had, not because you required it but because I _wanted_ to." She glared at Azula with twenty years of pent up malice and hatred. "You were too dense to see that, or if you did, you placed no value on it. I don't which makes me hate you more."

Azula glared at the girl as her mind tried to process this information. "What difference should it make to me whether my servants are willing or not?"

"Because I wasn't your servant, dammit!" Ty Lee screamed. "I was your _friend!_" Rage boiled in the acrobat. "I gave you everything I had, of my own free will, and you don't even care!"

"...Why?" Azula asked, still perplexed.

"Because-" Ty Lee yelled, but then cut her words off, realizing what she was about to reveal.

"What?" Azula demanded.

Ty Lee decided that it didn't matter what she said one way or another. She would be dead by morning either way. "Because I didn't just like you as a friend, you dim-witted louse," she seethed, ignoring the enraged glint in the fire bender's eyes. "I've been in love with you since we were eight!" Her voice was deadly cold, and she advanced on the now stunned ex-princess until she was close enough to prod her right in the sternum, which she did. "I gave everything to you, and for so long I had myself convinced that I didn't need anything in retribution. I told myself that you even putting up with me was enough. You treated me like scum, and still I loved you. You mocked me constantly, and still I loved you. You treated me like scum, had me locked away, and still I came to your dungeon every day after the war was over to help you recover your sanity and even after all of that, you thought of me as no different than anyone else, and still I loved you. To you I was just another brick in the wall, and at the same time you were my _everything_!" Ty Lee's voice was icy cold and deadly. She had never been son angry in her life. "But now? Now I'm done. My love's turned sour, and hate is all I can seem to find when I think of you. So Azula? _Get the hell out of my life,_" Ty Lee _hissed_.

To say Azula was stunned would be a monumental understatement. Stunned silent, even, for what must have been the first time.

Ty Lee just chuckled, not spent yet. "And you know what the worst, most ironic part of it was? I was the only one to see the light in you. I was the only one is this whole damned world to believe you had a soul. You always complained that no one loved you, and I would have done _anything_ for you! The one person in the world who loved you unconditionally, and you were too busy being the hateful little monster everyone _else_ had you believing that you were, that you couldn't step back for two seconds and see things the way they really were. It was _sickening_. So please, _princess_, kill me. I'm dead serious. I lived and would have died for you, and you wasted that. I devoted my life to you, but now that it's obvious you'll never want anything to do with me, I can't really find joy in things the way I used to. So go ahead!" She laughed, borderline maniac. "Fry me! Zap me, scorch me, whatever strikes your fancy! Everything I have is yours, same as always!"

Azula glared at her through narrow eyes and finally spoke. "Why? Why on earth would you love me?" she said it almost as if she was angry at the older girl for having such strange feelings.

"Dammit, because I could see through Ozai's hold on you, I don't know!" Ty Lee said, throwing her hands in the air. "I could see behind that evil mask you put up to please your father, the cold and cruel and calculating you that he molded you into. All _I_ saw was the talented, strong, perfect person you were _without_ your father's influence. I saw the person you could have become, and I've always thought that person was wonderful. I always dreamed that one day I would be able to bring out the Azula I saw lurking underneath Ozai's shell. But I guess I didn't succeed, did I?" She scoffed and turned around, stalking to the window. "You were too busy chasing after the false perfection everyone else told you was right, and you never thought you'd achieve it. You always thought that ideal of perfection was out of reach, but the entire time, you were already perfect to me. And I was so willing to be perfect for you. I would have done anything to make you happy... I would have been perfect for you, so you didn't have to be. I would have been anything you needed me to be, but your eyes were closed too tightly to what everyone else told you was 'right' that you never it a chance."

"I didn't know..." Azula trailed off, processing everything Ty Lee had said.

"Oh, gee! Really?" Ty Lee scoffed, sarcasm over-flowing in her words. For once though, Azula didn't respond. She just stood there, in silence. "Go away Azula. You don't love me. You never did, and that's the only thing I ever cared about. So just... leave. I'm going away tomorrow, and then we'll never have to see each other ever again." The lie of omission, she promised herself, was the last kind thing she would ever do for the Fire Nation royal. She was leaving alright, but it included a much more final departure. One she could never come back from, even if she wanted to.

Azula's receding footsteps, echoing amongst the thunder, shattered Ty Lee's heart for one final time.

The acrobat's funeral was held two weeks later, and Azula didn't shed a single tear.


End file.
